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In the spring of 2013, an anti-tax activist from near Youngstown showed up about 250 miles away
in Butler County north of Cincinnati. He demanded that officials raise the tax appraisals on more
than 200 homes of elected officials and public employees.

Robert Mellinger told officials “he doesn’t feel that anybody but the homeowner has the right to
file a complaint against a property,” said Julie Joyce-Smith, the real-estate manager for the
Butler County auditor. Mellinger, a commercial real-estate appraiser, told a newspaper that he
supports a bill by state Sen. Bill Coley to allow only the property owner to file such a
complaint.

In other words, a bill that would stop others from doing exactly what he was doing.

The Butler County Board of Revision dismissed the cases for lack of evidence, and no property
values changed. But Mellinger’s stunt appears to have worked: A bill approved in the Ohio Senate
would topple the state’s longstanding system of challenging property-tax appraisals. That’s because
Coley, a Republican, was one of the Butler County residents whose house Mellinger targeted. Asked
if it played a role in bringing his bill, Coley said: “Hugely, yes.” He noted he had pushed for the
change for years, and had met with Mellinger to discuss taxes, but “I have no idea why he did it,”
Coley said.

Still, he said, it illustrated that everybody in the football stadium has a red challenge flag
when it comes to property values.

Mellinger didn’t return telephone calls.

Coley’s bill would eliminate an entire list of elected officials who have the red challenge
flag: school boards, prosecutors, mayors, township trustees and others. Instead, only county
recorders, responsible for keeping track of deeds, mortgages and plats, could challenge a tax
appraisal.

School boards in particular use the current law to pursue tax money when a property owner
appears to have an appraisal that’s too low to be true.

In Franklin County, tax cuts granted by the Board of Revision have caused the Columbus City
Schools to lose $21.4 million in the last five years, while tax increases arising from cases filed
by the district have resulted in $2.7 million in tax increases, according to Jeff Rich, the
attorney who handles property-tax complaints for the district.

“There are a massive number of folks who get their taxes reduced every year,” Rich said. “
Really, what we’re doing is making sure that the schools don’t lose as much as they would” if the
process went completely unchecked.

Coley’s bill to end such challenges is being considered in a conference committee by the House
leadership.

“We have some real issues with this,” said state Rep. Jeff McClain, chairman of the Ways and
Means Committee. “We don’t think this is a good idea.”

The property-tax system is imperfect, but any system is going to have problems, said McClain, a
Republican from Upper Sandusky.

Under Coley’s bill, in Franklin County, where school districts file hundreds of complex cases a
year, the responsibility for all property-tax cases would fall to County Recorder Terry J.
Brown.

“We’re obviously extremely busy,” Brown said. “I’m sure that I would have to add staff and would
have to get them trained.”

Brown would get no money to perform this new role, and nobody could force the recorder to have a
case reviewed, no matter how egregious the facts. Franklin County has seen its share of egregious
cases.

In 2008, the Franklin County Board of Revision granted a 78 percent property-tax cut to a
five-star retirement village on the North Side. The appraisal went from $16.05 million to $3.5
million, citing what the owners said was a “sale price,” and costing the Columbus City Schools
$1.54 million a year.

But a case brought by the school district proved before the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals the sale
price included the land, not the buildings. The appraisal was hiked back to $16 million, and the
district collected a windfall of back taxes.

Columbus City Schools takes in millions of dollars a year by winning such cases and opposing
reductions. In the end, that lowers the property taxes for everyone else in the district. Think of
property taxes like a pie nobody really wants to eat: If somebody else’s piece of the tax burden is
incorrectly too small, yours gets bigger.

Columbus City Schools only challenges the value of “revenue-producing properties,” not
owner-occupied homes, said Larry Braverman, the district’s attorney. Rich’s firm is paid a retainer
of about $32,000 a month to monitor appraisals and choose which cases to pursue, Braverman
said.

But Coley points out that his bill wouldn’t prohibit school districts from countering when
someone files for a reduction. It only stops them from filing complaints. County recorders were
chosen to initiate cases because they play no role in the appraisals, Coley said.

And generally, school districts shouldn’t be targeting businesses, which typically help fund the
passage of levies, Coley said.